by Elizabeth | Oct 13, 2010 | Learning Story
Today we are back to a topic we have discussed several times in recent months: what does it mean to bear one another’s burdens? I was totally unprepared for how Bonhoeffer explains this. He says to bear another’s burden is to bear their “freedom” given to them by God.
“…it is the freedom of the other, mentioned earlier, that is a burden to Christians.155 The freedom of the other goes against Christians’ high opinions of themselves, and yet they must recognize it. Christians could rid themselves of this burden by not giving other persons their freedom, thus doing violence to the personhood of others and stamping their own image on others. But when Christians allow God to create God’s own image in others, they allow others their own freedom.
Thereby Christians themselves bear the burden of the freedom enjoyed by these other creatures of God. All that we mean by human nature, individuality, and talent is part of the other person’s freedom—as are the other’s weaknesses and peculiarities that so sorely try our patience, and everything that produces the plethora of clashes, differences, and arguments between me and the other. Here, bearing the burden of the other means tolerating the reality of the other’s creation by God—affirming it, and in bearing with it, breaking through to delight in it.” Bonhoeffer, Life Together
This thought forces us to think and pray. What does it mean, Lord, for us to give others their freedom? How does that work when it comes to someone who is sinning and doing harm to themselves, their family, and/or us? I encourage you to think about this as you walk through this day. Think about a person with whom you clash. What would it look like to bear their freedom?
p.s. I’d love to hear your thoughts here!
by Elizabeth | Oct 12, 2010 | Learning Story
Back to service…Bonhoeffer speaks of what it means to “bear with others.” This section is fascinating. Not what I have often thought of when I’ve thought of bearing one another’s burdens. If you’ve never read Life Together, I urge you to read at the very least the chapter on “Service.” I have highlighted almost all of it in my Kindle. Listen to what DB says and think about it. Who is a burden to you? What does it look like to bear with him or her? A few more thoughts tomorrow…
“Third, we speak of the service involved in bearing with others. “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). Thus the law of Christ is a law of forbearance. Forbearance means enduring and suffering. The other person is a burden to the Christian, in fact for the Christian most of all. The other person never becomes a burden at all for the pagans. They simply stay clear of every burden the other person may create for them. However, Christians must bear the burden of one another. They must suffer and endure one another. Only as a burden is the other really a brother or sister and not just an object to be controlled. The burden of human beings was even for God so heavy that God had to go to the cross suffering under it.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
by Elizabeth | Oct 11, 2010 | Learning Story
Okay, I admit, that’s a cheesy title, especially given the depth of Bonhoeffer’s words about Christ in community, but I’m a little — shall-we- say — challenged at the moment. I promise to get back to the third piece of service, but today we need this word:
“Christ is depicted as the embodiment both of God and Christians, who are moved to do what, without Christ, they would be unable to accomplish: to live together, sharing faith, hope, and self-giving love in a prayerful, compassionate, caring community. Christ is present in the community as representative of God’s graced outreach to God’s children and the incarnate embodiment of all those who crave in their faith for community with God. The Christ of Life Together is the binding force of that community in its “togetherness,” gracing Christians to go beyond the superficial, often self-centered, relationships of their everyday associations toward a more intimate sense of what it means to be Christ to others, to love others as Christ has loved them.”
Think about it. How does being in Christ and Christ being in you make a difference in the way you relate to community?
by Elizabeth | Oct 9, 2010 | Learning Story
Bonhoeffer’s second essential service:
“The other service one should perform for another person in a Christian community is active helpfulness. To begin with, we have in mind simple assistance in minor, external matters. There are many such things wherever people live together. Nobody is too good for the lowest service. Those who worry about the loss of time entailed by such small, external acts of helpfulness are usually taking their own work too seriously. We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God, who will thwart our plans and frustrate our ways time and again, even daily, by sending people across our path with their demands and requests.”
What about you? How do you feel about God’s interruptions? Bonhoeffer wrote in a community of many theologians who often found their “work” in God’s service too important to be interrupted with the daily tasks of life. Some of us need to take note of that.
Others of us may need to look at our service in the smaller tasks and see if we are doing all of them in a way that makes no room for others to serve.
God calls us to serve. Let us look at what it means to serve one another and how we can do that more and more out of love for God.
by Elizabeth | Oct 8, 2010 | Learning Story
I’ve been thinking a lot about Christian community lately. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a great guide to thinking about this subject. Here is what he has to say about how Christian service is performed in Christian community. He mentions that many would say it consists of “serving the Word” but argues that there must be more, and every service must be oriented to the Word. He suggests three other essential services of the Christian. Today the first:
“The first service one owes to others in the community involves listening to them. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them. God’s love for us is shown by the fact that God not only gives us God’s Word, but also lends us God’s ear. We do God’s work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them. So often Christians, especially preachers, think that their only service is always to have to ‘offer’ something when they are together with other people. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking. Many people seek a sympathetic ear and do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking when they should be listening. But Christians who no longer listen to one another will soon no longer be listening to God either; they will always be talking even in the presence of God.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
For reflection:
Try listening hard today. Notice when you would usually speak, and try listening to God, to the other, instead. What is that experience like?
by Elizabeth | Oct 7, 2010 | Learning Story
“Then the LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go.”
Exodus 7:14
For those who don’t know, shoulder surgery is a big part of my story — and three nights before my third shoulder surgery, the first on my left shoulder, I will say — a very redemptive one. When I told my PT that I had to have surgery again, he said, “You’re going to be coming every day. We are NOT going to let you grow scar tissue.” (We learned the first go-round how susceptible I am to scarring.) Today I am posting a piece I wrote about scar tissue. (Beginning in the middle of the story, leaving out the gory details of how they address scar tissue:).
There is a scar tissue even more fearful than that in my shoulder. We all struggle with scar tissue entangling our hearts, binding them so that they do not move in the freedom for which we were set free in Christ. Some of this scar tissue formed from deep wounds in our stories – when the kids on the playground made fun of us, or our mom left us for her lover, or our dad slapped our face to make us more of a man.
The tissue wrapped around our hearts when we turned to gods who were not God to rescue us or to medicate us. If it were left entirely up to me to move my shoulder to break up the scar tissue, I couldn’t subject myself to the agony. Many of us have learned ways not to feel the agony of our hearts — we say, “Oh, I don’t care if my Mom says I’m too fat,” or we drink one more glass of wine, or we work until we drop. We even go to church every time the doors open so we don’t have to face the pain in our hearts. And in our addictions and idolatry, the scar tissue binds us and our hearts freeze.
My PT’s at Select are skilled and undaunted. They pursue the entangling tissue despite my pain, and one day my arm will again swing a tennis racket freely, as it was designed to do. Yes, I must cooperate in the healing process. The toughest part for me is relying on someone else to save me, to believe that his plan for the healing process is the right one, even when it hurts like h-e-double-hockey-sticks! I have work to do too, exercises that will continue to retrain the muscles to move as they were made.
Our heart’s physical therapist, the Lord and Creator of our bodies and souls, similarly gives us what we need in the healing process, not necessarily what we want. Hearts encased in scar tissue become enslaved to gods that are not God. He lubricates our hearts with grace and forgiveness; at times He allows pain, and He never turns away from our agony, though He sends comfort in the moment.
God sent His own Son to bear our wounds so that we can be freed to move as we were created to do. It is God’s grace that softens our hearts hardened by sin, and in that grace we are empowered to retrain our hearts to move as they were meant to – to love and to serve Him as we love and serve others. Indeed, as Galatians 5:1-2 exhorts us, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” – let us surrender the scar tissue of our hearts to the One who sets us free.
